Misplaced Trust?

 "Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation." (D. Elton Trueblood) 

Trust without reservation - those words really hit home with me today because I have moments when I kind of 'reserve the right' to be fearful of things. How about you? Do you ever have 'reservations' about what God will do, what he is doing, or that he is even concerned about whatever it is you need right now? I think we all have those little 'battles' with faith on occasion, not really doubting God's love or kindness toward us, but seeing the issue before us and being overwhelmed by it rather than the presence of God in the moment.

Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation. By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen. (Hebrews 11:1-3)

The reality of what we hope for - doubt isn't the exact opposite of faith, it is a misplaced trust in the things we CAN see and not in what we cannot see! We trust the circumstance or situation's influence above or more than we trust our unseen God. While 'seeing is believing' in many situations, we cannot live life that way or we will always be fearful, doubtful, and overwhelmed by life. Where we place our trust influences how we approach the situation. We can trust what we see, missing out on the emotional, physical, and spiritual 'boost' God gives when we trust him more than what we see.

If we go through life demanding 'proof' before we ever act upon things, we will find ourselves spinning our wheels a great deal of the time. We won't get very far and will always be 'bound up' in our misplaced trust. When our hearts and minds are given over to the control of the Holy Spirit, the doubts we seem to entertain on occasion begin to have less and less impact on us. We learn to 'look beyond' what is seen and trust in what we know about our God more than what we can see. God isn't bound by the 'known' - he works in the realm of the unknown more often than we might realize. Just sayin!